Love Notes: A Black Feminist Incantation on Queerotic Literacies

• In Event: (Re)Imagining Education for Girls of Color

Abstract

In this paper, the presenter expands upon Muhammad and Haddix’s (2016) framework on Black girls’ literacies and initiates a conversation on queer and erotic, what I reference “queerotic,” literacies. I introduce Nina and Erykah—lovers and co-creators within a blues, hip hop, theater ensemble named, Nina’s House—and intermingle their shared songwriting and love as queer, femme, and contemporary blues women.

Theoretical Framework
I frame my ideas within an interdisciplinary Black feminist/womanist scholarly turn, where cross-disciplinary scholars reexamine old dialogues, articulate new imaginings, and stir up trouble amongst co-conspirators celebrating Black girlhood and womanhood (Brown, 2013; Cooper, 2017; Cox, 2015; Lindsey, 2017; Love, 2017; McKittrick, 2006; Muhammad, 2015; Muhammad & Haddix, 2016; Nash, 2014; Ohito, 2016; Simmons, 2015; Staples, 2016). This turn is fascinating in two parts. On one hand, this shift strengthens cross-disciplinary dialogues on race and gender, expanding sociocultural conversations beyond raciality. On the other hand, this interlude only minimally addresses sexuality ostensibly creating new limitations on Black girlhood and womanhood situated within cisgender and heteronormative generalizations. Thus, an invisible thread meanders scholarly works on Black girls’ literacies, encouraging me to inquire: whose narratives are central in scholarship on Black girlhood and womanhood?

Methods
I enlist Black feminist “love notes” as methodological and analytical framework to examine and illuminate queer Black girls’ ways of expressing love and pleasure and inquire: what can Nina and Erykah’s role as co-creators and lovers within Nina’s House teach us about how queer Black femmes cultivate strategies for reading, writing, performing, and signifying a world beyond heteropatriarchy, heteromasculinity, and heterosexism; how are our understandings of Black girls’ literacies expanded when queerness, eroticism, and love are imbricated in a unifying focal point; and how can queerotic literacies—formed and expressed by queer Black girls and women—shape a theoretical bridge for centering Black girls’ sexualities, sexual agency (Stallings, 2012), and pleasure within Black girls’ literacies?

Data Sources
I draw upon qualitative interview, ethnographic observation, and songwriting data collected from Nina and Erykah between 2014-2015. I equally examine extant scholarship on historical Blues Women legacies.

Findings
Findings suggest the embodiment and expressions of queer and trans* girls/women of color (QTGWOC) is not fully captured in existing research on Black girlhood and womanhood. Nina and Erykah described—within interviews and song lyrics—unique struggles with navigating sexual agency, eroticism, and love not only beyond heteronormativity and heterosexism, but also beyond homophobia experienced within their religious Southern Black and Ethiopian immigrant families. The tensions expressed within questioning and accepting their sexualities suggest more research is necessary with younger girls who are also attempting to navigate queerness.

Scholarly Significance
This paper amplifies our scholarly record by initiating necessary conversations on queer and trans* Black girls’ and women’s ways of being, knowing, and becoming. Arguably, we can gain new insight about how QTGWOC deepen repertoires of being, loving, knowing, and becoming by doing work that centers their raced, gendered, and sexual experiences, not in fragments, but as a cohesive whole.

Author

• Fahima I. Ife, Louisiana State University